Do you believe in TV Magic?

In my last post I wrote about the "Giant Surprise Catalog of  Professional Magic," and so I thought I might as well continue with that magic theme.

From age five to about twelve I was very interested in magic. Hardly a birthday or Christmas went by without a gift of some sort of new magic trick. My very first trick was a deck of TV Magic Cards.  An advanced magic trick for a five year old I know, but this was due to the frequent commercials featuring magician Marshall Brodien in the 1970's...



At that young age I remember thinking magic was real.  So when I was given the deck I thought the cards were enchanted. It was a cold slap of reality when I quickly learned it was just a trick, and magicians were basically just pretending.  I think magic could probably be used for teaching children logic and critical thinking.

After the TV Magic Cards I received other magic sets by Marshall Brodien, and this is how I got this booklet, Fifty TV Magic Tricks which has a good selection of easy tricks for beginners...

Read the first page "How To Be A Magician."  Maybe if I had stuck with magic beyond the start of adolescence I too could have been the "life of the party"...

Here's a trick (and it's not truly a magic trick, unless you consider a flambé magic) that wouldn't be found in a magic book today that could be read by children...

Booze and fire? Remember kids, don't try this at home - go to a neighbors house!

Lastly, a different kind of "TV magic," I remember being a big fan of this 70's syndicated magic show called Wonderful World of Magic hosted by Bill Bixby...



Extra big bonus points to anyone reading who can remember this show.  IMDb doesn't even list it.

Vick Lawston's Giant Surprise Catalog of Professional Magic

In the spirit of April Fools I thought I'd do a few posts this month about novelties, magic tricks and top it off with a little "fun" original animation.

Inspiration for my April Fools animation came from a skit on Joel Hodgson's The TV Wheel.  The TV Wheel was a ingenious "experiment" from 1995 that unfortunately never got beyond a pilot.  The sketch is "Vick Lawston's Giant Surprise Catalog of Professional Magic."  Paul Feig plays Vick Lawston, and Joel is supposedly the voice of Pumpernickel the monkey. Please watch the sketch below starting at 1:32...




Until I wrote this post I had always assumed that Vick Lawston was a fictional character created for the sketch, but to my 'giant surprise' he and the "Giant Surprise Catalog of  Professional Magic" are 100% real....

Gee, I feel like I'm the last to know. I sure wish I had a copy of that catalog.  The few scans of some of pages I've seen online look priceless.  Vick's son Jeff, who's in the reflective tape business, has a small page devoted to his late father right here. It's the most "official" Vick Lawston site you will find on the interweb.